Claudine Arend Cox was born on October 4, 1929, in France. Her mother, father and two step-brothers lived on the second floor of a big house in the small town of Boulay-Moselle. Her father was a doctor and practiced medicine on the first floor of the building.

Everything changed for Cox both in her life and the world at large with the combination of her mother’s sudden death and the German occupation of France under the Nazi regime. She never felt safe living in Nazi-occupied France, and it wasn’t until her and her father moved to live with family in Marcigny that she could finally breathe.

It was also during the war that Cox and her father fled to the U.S. to live with family in Kansas. They returned after France was liberated, but Cox said she was soon ready to go back to the States because her home country was not how she remembered it.

She married Max Arend in America and the two raised two adopted daughters, Suzanne and Julie, until Max’s untimely death from cancer. In her later years, Cox found her calling with volunteer work and helping with her church in Springfield.

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Music is Bach Cello Suite no. 3 by Colin Carr from the Free Music Archive.

Episodes are edited, recorded, mixed, and published by Diana Dudenhoeffer.